All you
need is to search and browse our listings of African football players using the
transfer search facility and find the best footballers in Africa by age,
position, experience, nationality, wage, club, fee and more,’’ he said.
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Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Football Secret Slave Business on Africa Players
In the Ghanaian capital of Accra, football is a religion
and the soccer schools offer the path to nirvana. They are also at the
beginning of a dangerous production line. Young players here many
barefoot are the raw material, each harbouring a dream to play in
Europe.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Nigerian President Dies
Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua has died, an official at his office confirmed late on Wednesday.
The website 234next.com reported that he died at the Nigerian presidential villa.
Yar'Adua won the 2007 presidential election with 24.6 million ballots cast in his favor, which was 70% of the vote.
But the election was highly controversial. Strongly criticized by observers, as well as the two primary opposition candidates, Muhammadu Buhari of the All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP) and Atiku Abubakar of the Action Congress (AC), its results were largely rejected as having been rigged in Yar'Adua's favor.
Get more info on the news at the presstv
The website 234next.com reported that he died at the Nigerian presidential villa.
Yar'Adua won the 2007 presidential election with 24.6 million ballots cast in his favor, which was 70% of the vote.
But the election was highly controversial. Strongly criticized by observers, as well as the two primary opposition candidates, Muhammadu Buhari of the All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP) and Atiku Abubakar of the Action Congress (AC), its results were largely rejected as having been rigged in Yar'Adua's favor.
Get more info on the news at the presstv
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Governance in Africa
The political situation in Africa perpetuates the intractable nature of African poverty. Democracy in Africa has not been historically successful, almost always supplanted by centralized authoritarian rule such as military dictatorships. Although some rulers worked to improve the lot of their nation's citizens, others used power purely for their own benefit. Among the most notorious was Mobuto Sese Seko of Zaire, whose regime has been called a kleptocracy due to its looting of the nation's wealth. According to international measures, the economies of Africa generally rank among the most corrupt. Bribery and graft abound, due to poverty and poorly handled de-colonization, and the superpowers' (Soviet Union and United States) practice during the Cold War of supporting any ruler with the desired political alignment, regardless of their managerial practices or human rights records.
Dependency theory asserts that the wealth and prosperity of the superpowers and their allies in Europe, North America and East Asia is dependent upon the poverty of the rest of the world, including Africa. Economists who subscribe to this theory believe that poorer regions must break their trading ties with the developed world in order to prosper.[51]
Less radical theories suggest that economic protectionism in developed countries hampers Africa's growth. When developing countries have harvested agricultural produce at low cost, they generally do not export as much as would be expected. Abundant farm subsidies and high import tariffs in the developed world, most notably those set by Japan, the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy, and the United States Department of Agriculture, are thought to be the cause. Although these subsidies and tariffs have been gradually reduced, they remain high.
Local conditions also affect exports. In addition to lack of mechanization or other infrastructure, state over-regulation in several African nations can prevent their own exports from becoming competitive. Research in Public Choice economics such as that of Jane Shaw suggest that protectionism operates in tandem with heavy State intervention combining to depress economic development. Farmers subject to import and export restrictions cater to localized markets, exposing them to higher market volatility and fewer opportunities. When subject to uncertain market conditions farmers press for governmental intervention to suppress competition in their markets, resulting in competition being driven out of the market. As competition is driven out of the market farmers innovate less and grow less food further undermining economic performance.[52][53]
Although Africa and Asia had similar levels of income in the 1960s, Asia has since outpaced Africa. One school of economists argues that Asia's superior economic development lies in local investment. Corruption in Africa consists primarily of extracting economic rent and moving the resulting financial capital overseas instead of investing at home; the stereotype of African dictators with Swiss bank accounts is often accurate.
Asian dictators such as Suharto often take a cut on everything, necessitating bribery, but enable development through infrastructure investment and the social stability created by law and order.[citation needed] University of Massachusetts researchers estimate that from 1970 to 1996, capital flight from 30 sub-Saharan countries totalled $187bn, exceeding those nations' external debts.[54] This disparity in development is consistent with the model theorized by economist Mancur Olson. Because governments were politically unstable and new governments often confiscated their predecessors' assets, officials would stash their wealth abroad, out of reach of any future expropriation.[citation needed]
Corruption encouraged social inequality, because the wealthy elite not only avoided investing at home, but also imported most of its consumption. Desirable luxury goods were generally not locally available. This hindered the development of national markets. Historically, economic development is closely linked to the creation of a middle class with enough income to save and invest but limited influence on governance. In countries without such a middle class, development is all but impossible, beyond resource extraction.
Dependency theory asserts that the wealth and prosperity of the superpowers and their allies in Europe, North America and East Asia is dependent upon the poverty of the rest of the world, including Africa. Economists who subscribe to this theory believe that poorer regions must break their trading ties with the developed world in order to prosper.[51]
Less radical theories suggest that economic protectionism in developed countries hampers Africa's growth. When developing countries have harvested agricultural produce at low cost, they generally do not export as much as would be expected. Abundant farm subsidies and high import tariffs in the developed world, most notably those set by Japan, the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy, and the United States Department of Agriculture, are thought to be the cause. Although these subsidies and tariffs have been gradually reduced, they remain high.
Local conditions also affect exports. In addition to lack of mechanization or other infrastructure, state over-regulation in several African nations can prevent their own exports from becoming competitive. Research in Public Choice economics such as that of Jane Shaw suggest that protectionism operates in tandem with heavy State intervention combining to depress economic development. Farmers subject to import and export restrictions cater to localized markets, exposing them to higher market volatility and fewer opportunities. When subject to uncertain market conditions farmers press for governmental intervention to suppress competition in their markets, resulting in competition being driven out of the market. As competition is driven out of the market farmers innovate less and grow less food further undermining economic performance.[52][53]
Although Africa and Asia had similar levels of income in the 1960s, Asia has since outpaced Africa. One school of economists argues that Asia's superior economic development lies in local investment. Corruption in Africa consists primarily of extracting economic rent and moving the resulting financial capital overseas instead of investing at home; the stereotype of African dictators with Swiss bank accounts is often accurate.
Asian dictators such as Suharto often take a cut on everything, necessitating bribery, but enable development through infrastructure investment and the social stability created by law and order.[citation needed] University of Massachusetts researchers estimate that from 1970 to 1996, capital flight from 30 sub-Saharan countries totalled $187bn, exceeding those nations' external debts.[54] This disparity in development is consistent with the model theorized by economist Mancur Olson. Because governments were politically unstable and new governments often confiscated their predecessors' assets, officials would stash their wealth abroad, out of reach of any future expropriation.[citation needed]
Corruption encouraged social inequality, because the wealthy elite not only avoided investing at home, but also imported most of its consumption. Desirable luxury goods were generally not locally available. This hindered the development of national markets. Historically, economic development is closely linked to the creation of a middle class with enough income to save and invest but limited influence on governance. In countries without such a middle class, development is all but impossible, beyond resource extraction.
Origins of Agriculture
The first examples of agriculture in Africa are believed to have begun in the heart of the Sahara Desert, but which in 5200 BC was far more moist and densely populated. Several native species were domesticated, most importantly pearl millet, sorghum and cowpeas which spread through West Africa and the Sahel. The Sahara at this time was like the Sahel today. Its wide open fields made cultivation easy, but the poor soil and limited rain made intensive farming impossible. The local crops were also not ideal and produced fewer calories than those of other regions. These factors limited surpluses and kept populations sparse and unurbanized.
Africa thus took a very different route from the southern regions. Climatically it is closely linked to the Middle East and the Fertile Crescent and the agricultural techniques of that region were adopted wholesale. This included a very different sets of crops, such as wheat, barley, and grapes. North Africa was also blessed by one of the richest agricultural regions in the world in the form of the Nile River valley. With the arrival of agriculture the Nile region quickly became one of the most densely populated in the world, and the Egyptians home to one of the first civilizations.
The drying of the Sahara created a formidable barrier between the northern and southern portions of the continent. Two important exceptions were Nubia that was linked to Egypt by the Nile and Ethiopia that could trade with the northern regions over the Red Sea. Powerful states grew up in these regions such as Kush in Nubia and Axum in Ethiopia. From these regions ideas and technologies from the Middle East and Europe could travel to Sub-Saharan Africa.
One of these was iron working that arrived, presumably from Sudan around 1200 BC and quickly spread to West Africa and reached South Africa by the fifth century AD. Some historians believe that iron working may have been developed independently in Africa. Unlike other continents Africa did not have a period of copper and bronze working before the Iron Age. Copper is quite rare in Africa while iron is quite common. In Nubia and Ethiopia iron, trade, and agricultural surpluses lead to the establishment of cities and civilizations.
In the still more sparsely settled rest of the continent this same period sees the expansion of the Bantu speaking peoples. The Bantu expansion almost certainly began in Southern Cameroon around 4000 years ago. Bantu languages are spoken there today and there is archaeological evidence for incoming Neolithic farmers in Northern Gabon ca. 3800 BP. It is known that their expansion was extremely rapid and massive, but its exact engine remains controversial.
This is too early for iron, which appears in the archaeological record by 2500 BP. One of the early expansions of Bantu was the migration of the Bubi to Fernando Po (Bioko) and they were still using stone technology at first European contact. The difficulties of cutting down the equatorial forest for farming have led to the suggestion that the primary expansion was along river valleys, a hypothesis supported by studies of fish names. Another factor may have been the arrival of SE Asian food crops, notably the AAB plantain, the cocoyam and the water-yam. Linguistic reconstructions suggest that the only livestock possessed by the proto-Bantu was the goat.
Over the centuries the entire southern half of Africa was covered, excluding only the Kalahari desert. This expansion only ended relatively recently. In the year 1000 Arab traders show that the Bantu had not reached as far as Mozambique, and European settlers observed the Bantu expansion into South Africa under the Zulu and others.
The importation Bantu pastoralism reshaped the continent's economy. Sometime in the first millennium and equally important change began as crops began to arrive from Southeast Asia. The Indian Ocean has always been far more open to trade than the turbulent Atlantic and Pacific. Traders could ride the monsoon winds west early in the year and return east on them later. It is guessed that these crops first arrived in Madagascar, which also adopted Southeast Asian languages, sometime between AD 300 and 800. From the island the crops crossed to East Africa. They included many crops, the most important being the banana.
The banana and other crops allowed for more intensive cultivation in the tropical regions of Africa, this was most notable in the Great Lakes region, and area with excellent soil, that saw many cities and states form, their populations being fed largely by bananas.
Africa thus took a very different route from the southern regions. Climatically it is closely linked to the Middle East and the Fertile Crescent and the agricultural techniques of that region were adopted wholesale. This included a very different sets of crops, such as wheat, barley, and grapes. North Africa was also blessed by one of the richest agricultural regions in the world in the form of the Nile River valley. With the arrival of agriculture the Nile region quickly became one of the most densely populated in the world, and the Egyptians home to one of the first civilizations.
The drying of the Sahara created a formidable barrier between the northern and southern portions of the continent. Two important exceptions were Nubia that was linked to Egypt by the Nile and Ethiopia that could trade with the northern regions over the Red Sea. Powerful states grew up in these regions such as Kush in Nubia and Axum in Ethiopia. From these regions ideas and technologies from the Middle East and Europe could travel to Sub-Saharan Africa.
One of these was iron working that arrived, presumably from Sudan around 1200 BC and quickly spread to West Africa and reached South Africa by the fifth century AD. Some historians believe that iron working may have been developed independently in Africa. Unlike other continents Africa did not have a period of copper and bronze working before the Iron Age. Copper is quite rare in Africa while iron is quite common. In Nubia and Ethiopia iron, trade, and agricultural surpluses lead to the establishment of cities and civilizations.
In the still more sparsely settled rest of the continent this same period sees the expansion of the Bantu speaking peoples. The Bantu expansion almost certainly began in Southern Cameroon around 4000 years ago. Bantu languages are spoken there today and there is archaeological evidence for incoming Neolithic farmers in Northern Gabon ca. 3800 BP. It is known that their expansion was extremely rapid and massive, but its exact engine remains controversial.
This is too early for iron, which appears in the archaeological record by 2500 BP. One of the early expansions of Bantu was the migration of the Bubi to Fernando Po (Bioko) and they were still using stone technology at first European contact. The difficulties of cutting down the equatorial forest for farming have led to the suggestion that the primary expansion was along river valleys, a hypothesis supported by studies of fish names. Another factor may have been the arrival of SE Asian food crops, notably the AAB plantain, the cocoyam and the water-yam. Linguistic reconstructions suggest that the only livestock possessed by the proto-Bantu was the goat.
Over the centuries the entire southern half of Africa was covered, excluding only the Kalahari desert. This expansion only ended relatively recently. In the year 1000 Arab traders show that the Bantu had not reached as far as Mozambique, and European settlers observed the Bantu expansion into South Africa under the Zulu and others.
The importation Bantu pastoralism reshaped the continent's economy. Sometime in the first millennium and equally important change began as crops began to arrive from Southeast Asia. The Indian Ocean has always been far more open to trade than the turbulent Atlantic and Pacific. Traders could ride the monsoon winds west early in the year and return east on them later. It is guessed that these crops first arrived in Madagascar, which also adopted Southeast Asian languages, sometime between AD 300 and 800. From the island the crops crossed to East Africa. They included many crops, the most important being the banana.
The banana and other crops allowed for more intensive cultivation in the tropical regions of Africa, this was most notable in the Great Lakes region, and area with excellent soil, that saw many cities and states form, their populations being fed largely by bananas.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Economic History of Africa
Ancient Egypt was one of the world's most prosperous and advanced civilizations, which began around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and it developed over the next three millennia. The port of Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great in 334 BC, was a hub for Mediterranean trade for centuries. Well into the 19th century, Egypt remained one of the most developed regions in the world. Prosperity in the rest of Africa existed in nation states and kingdoms such as the Ghana Empire , Nubia, Ethiopia, and Mali, which had trade routes north to the Mediterranean world and Middle East.
Africans have historically built structures from stone mainly in the Nile Valley in cities like Meroe, Napata, Axum by former Nubian and Ethiopian kingdoms. Most other Sub Saharan African pre-colonial civilizations built mainly out of mud brick, leaving few lasting ruins except Great Zimbabwe. Finding no architectural monuments in most parts of the region, some European explorers and historians long concluded that pre-colonial sub-Saharan Africa was devoid of civilization (see Sub-Saharan Africa critic of the term).
It must be noted that racism also blinded some of the European explorers and historians to conclude that pre-colonial Africa was devoid of civilization for example J. Theodore Bent, who researched the origins of Great Zimbabwe stated in The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland (1891) that the ruins revealed either the Phoenicians or the Arabs as builders. Other European researcher favored a legend that the structures were built to replicate the palace of the Queen of Sheba in Jerusalem.[13] Other theories as to their origin abounded among white settlers and academics, with one racist element in common: they were probably not made by Africans.
Once a departure point for trans-Saharan caravans, the market of Douz, Tunisia is today popular with Western tourists.New technologies and increasing scales of production made trading easier. For most of the first millennium AD, the Axumite Kingdom had a prosperous trade empire on the eastern horn, where the modern states of Ethiopia and Eritrea lie. Axum had a powerful navy and traded as far as the Byzantine Empire, India, and possibly China. The introduction of the camel by North African Arab conquerors in the 10th century opened trade across the Sahara for the first time.
The profits from the gold and salt trades created powerful empires in the western Sahel including the Kingdom of Ghana and the Mali and Kanem-Bornu Empires, where travellers reported vast wealth. Arabs helped build a maritime trade along Africa's east coast, which prospered as Swahili traders exported ivory and slaves across the Indian Ocean.
Further south empires were less common, with the notable exception of Great Zimbabwe. In the Great Lakes region, states such as Rwanda, Burundi, and Buganda became strongly centralized, due to its high population and agricultural surplus.
In the 15th century, Portuguese traders circumvented the Saharan trade route and began to trade directly with Guinea. Other European traders followed, rapidly boosting prosperity in Western Africa. States flourished, including the Kingdom of Benin, Dahomey, and the Ashanti Confederacy. Loose federations of city states such as those of the Yoruba and Hausa were common. However, this wealth was principally based on the slave trade, which collapsed following the abolition of slavery and later European colonization.
Although Europeans were ostensibly committed to developing their colonies, colonial rulers employed a laissez-faire strategy during the first decades. It was hoped that European companies would prosper if given a secure operating environment. This only occurred in a few areas with rich resources; the colonial economies hardly grew from the 1890s through the 1920s. The colonies had to pay their own way, receiving little or no development money from Europe. Only in the 1930s, with the rise of Keynesian economics, did the colonial administrations seriously encourage development. However, new projects could not transpire until after the Great Depression and the Second World War.
African economies boomed during the 1950s as growth and international trade multiplied beyond their pre-war levels. The insatiable demand for raw materials in the rebuilding economies of Asia and Europe and the strong growth in North America inflated the price of raw materials. By the end of the colonial era in the 1960s, there was great hope for African self-sufficience and prosperity. However, sporadic growth continued as the newly independent nations borrowed heavily from abroad.
The world economic decline of the 1970s, rising oil prices, corruption, and political instability hit Africa hard. In subsequent decades Africa has steadily become poorer compared to the rest of the world; South America experienced solid growth, and East Asia spectacular growth, during that same period. According to the World Economic Forum, ten percent of the world's poor were African in 1970; by 2000, that figure had risen to 50 percent. Between 1974 and 2000 the average income declined by $200. Beginning in 1976, the Lomé Convention and Cotonou Agreement between the European Union and ACP countries, including Sub-Saharan Africa, have structured economic relations between the two regions.
Africans have historically built structures from stone mainly in the Nile Valley in cities like Meroe, Napata, Axum by former Nubian and Ethiopian kingdoms. Most other Sub Saharan African pre-colonial civilizations built mainly out of mud brick, leaving few lasting ruins except Great Zimbabwe. Finding no architectural monuments in most parts of the region, some European explorers and historians long concluded that pre-colonial sub-Saharan Africa was devoid of civilization (see Sub-Saharan Africa critic of the term).
It must be noted that racism also blinded some of the European explorers and historians to conclude that pre-colonial Africa was devoid of civilization for example J. Theodore Bent, who researched the origins of Great Zimbabwe stated in The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland (1891) that the ruins revealed either the Phoenicians or the Arabs as builders. Other European researcher favored a legend that the structures were built to replicate the palace of the Queen of Sheba in Jerusalem.[13] Other theories as to their origin abounded among white settlers and academics, with one racist element in common: they were probably not made by Africans.
Once a departure point for trans-Saharan caravans, the market of Douz, Tunisia is today popular with Western tourists.New technologies and increasing scales of production made trading easier. For most of the first millennium AD, the Axumite Kingdom had a prosperous trade empire on the eastern horn, where the modern states of Ethiopia and Eritrea lie. Axum had a powerful navy and traded as far as the Byzantine Empire, India, and possibly China. The introduction of the camel by North African Arab conquerors in the 10th century opened trade across the Sahara for the first time.
The profits from the gold and salt trades created powerful empires in the western Sahel including the Kingdom of Ghana and the Mali and Kanem-Bornu Empires, where travellers reported vast wealth. Arabs helped build a maritime trade along Africa's east coast, which prospered as Swahili traders exported ivory and slaves across the Indian Ocean.
Further south empires were less common, with the notable exception of Great Zimbabwe. In the Great Lakes region, states such as Rwanda, Burundi, and Buganda became strongly centralized, due to its high population and agricultural surplus.
In the 15th century, Portuguese traders circumvented the Saharan trade route and began to trade directly with Guinea. Other European traders followed, rapidly boosting prosperity in Western Africa. States flourished, including the Kingdom of Benin, Dahomey, and the Ashanti Confederacy. Loose federations of city states such as those of the Yoruba and Hausa were common. However, this wealth was principally based on the slave trade, which collapsed following the abolition of slavery and later European colonization.
Although Europeans were ostensibly committed to developing their colonies, colonial rulers employed a laissez-faire strategy during the first decades. It was hoped that European companies would prosper if given a secure operating environment. This only occurred in a few areas with rich resources; the colonial economies hardly grew from the 1890s through the 1920s. The colonies had to pay their own way, receiving little or no development money from Europe. Only in the 1930s, with the rise of Keynesian economics, did the colonial administrations seriously encourage development. However, new projects could not transpire until after the Great Depression and the Second World War.
African economies boomed during the 1950s as growth and international trade multiplied beyond their pre-war levels. The insatiable demand for raw materials in the rebuilding economies of Asia and Europe and the strong growth in North America inflated the price of raw materials. By the end of the colonial era in the 1960s, there was great hope for African self-sufficience and prosperity. However, sporadic growth continued as the newly independent nations borrowed heavily from abroad.
The world economic decline of the 1970s, rising oil prices, corruption, and political instability hit Africa hard. In subsequent decades Africa has steadily become poorer compared to the rest of the world; South America experienced solid growth, and East Asia spectacular growth, during that same period. According to the World Economic Forum, ten percent of the world's poor were African in 1970; by 2000, that figure had risen to 50 percent. Between 1974 and 2000 the average income declined by $200. Beginning in 1976, the Lomé Convention and Cotonou Agreement between the European Union and ACP countries, including Sub-Saharan Africa, have structured economic relations between the two regions.
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